Cop by day, auto driver in the afternoon and haleem supplier by night. That’s Javeed Khan for you. A multitasker, Khan dons many hats – all to keep the wolf away. He slogs most part of the day and night just to give a decent education to his four children.
A Home Guard bearing number 3024, Khan is attached to the Saifabad traffic police station. Like all Home Guards he gets paid a pittance of Rs. 200 a day. There is no weekly off, no medical facility – nothing. No work no pay – that’s the rule. The monthly earnings are hardly sufficient to run the house, forget educating children. But Khan and his wife are determined to give their children a good education no matter how much they have to struggle. So Khan has decided to sweat it out. He can be found regulating traffic at the Iqbal Minar in Saifabad from 8 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. Thereafter, he drives an auto till late in the night. And during Ramzan he has been working at a haleem joint at Patharghatti. “I earn Rs. 200 per day serving haleem. After Ramzan, I will go back to driving auto which fetches me an equal amount after paying the auto rent and meeting the petrol charges,” says Khan.
Though he has studied up to Intermediate, he wants his children to be well educated. Yet, paying the college fee of his daughter which comes to Rs. 18,000 per annum has become a task. It is his ardent wish to get regularised in the Police Department where he is working since 2000. “Now I am 41 and not eligible to write the exam,” he rues.
Khan is all praise for his former boss and Additional Commissioner of Police (Traffic) C.V. Anand for providing masks, goggles, reflecting jackets and kit bags to traffic cops. For you, with you - always. Hope the Police Department abides by its own assertion at least in the case of its workforce.
